Comments on: In Praise of Jean Shepherd, 1921-1999

By: Citizen Reader

Citizen Reader — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:37:46 +0000

I LOVE Jean Shepherd and was so glad to find your tribute to him here. People who think they know him just from watching “The Christmas Story” are way off–that’s a good intro, but nowhere near as dark and twisted as his really good stuff gets. Thank you!!

By: Thinking of You Chartroose! « Care's Online Book Club

Thinking of You Chartroose! « Care's Online Book Club — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:58:15 +0000

[...] A tribute to a favorite peresonality Jean Shepherd [...]

By: chartroose

chartroose — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:30:51 +0000

Thanks, Care!

By: bkclubcare

bkclubcare — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:25:36 +0000

I learn so much from your blog! (not sarcasm.) Thank you! Of course, A Christmas Story is classic and must be watched every year.

By: verbivore

verbivore — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:27:05 +0000

Will have to look for him – I’d never heard of him until reading this but he sounds great. I agree with you on humor, writing funny is exceptionally difficult.

By: chartroose

chartroose — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:55:03 +0000

Hi Eugene–
Excellent! I’m going to have to read your book. I’m not a big biography person, but I’ll make an exception for Shepherd because he was so wonderfully talented.

I had no idea that all those childhood stories were spur-of-the-moment! That’s pretty impressive. How did he remember all that stuff? I wish I were that smart.

The brown gravy comments are in a brilliant story in “A Fistful of Fig Newtons” where he’s traveling on a troop transport through the South and is forced to ladle brown gravy over and over again and becomes so exhausted that the gravy begins to take on mystical powers.

Excelsior right back at you!

P.S. How come all the good ones have to die? Shepherd is one guy I would dearly love to talk to in person. It’s just not fair…

By: Eugene B. Bergmann

Eugene B. Bergmann — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:07:29 +0000

Nice tribute to Shepherd. Note that the stories in IN GOD WE TRUST ALL OTHERS PAY CASH, etc. and those from the movie A CHRISTMAS STORY, were all first broadcast by him extemporaneously–he never used a script in his 21 years on WOR New York radio (1956-1977).

Note that “Shepherd’s Pie” was a New Jersey television show (also the name of a series of his audio tape readings of some of his stories). He also interviewed The Beatles for Playboy (early 1965) and did several other television series including “Jean Shepherd’s America.”

For lots of all this stuff and more, see my book EXCELSIOR, YOU FATHEAD! THE ART AND ENIGMA OF JEAN SHEPHERD.

By the way, where’s the Ralphie comment on brown gravy?

Excelsior!